Goldsmiths University of London, renowned for graduates such as Damien Hirst, and Steve McQueen… a place of passion for creatives to come together to elevate their learning journey not only with their piers, but with practicing lecturers too, surrounded by equality and rights for all… Goldsmiths University… ANYTHING BUT THAT
Studying Fine Art & History of Art at Goldsmith University has been an experience, to say the least… In my first two weeks off attending there, I was told to go k!ll myself! Why? Well because I am straight, white, and male, essentially classed as the devil in this day and age as the girl who told me to end my life so kindly put it.
This post is not a rant, but a sharing experience I felt any future students of Goldsmiths should read, do not get me wrong, there are good things about Goldsmiths, and I will get to them, but also be warned every place has skeletons in their closet.
The course itself is a relativity enjoyable experince, with a seating code structure that NEVER worked, called SEATS, which is how they measure attendance, although I attending every class and lecture, SEATS says I attended less than half… and what doesn’t help is that half of the lectures don’t like the new SEATS code structure and actually encourage us not to use it in protest of the university.
Goldsmiths University is BROKE, like really broke. Once lecturer said £22 Million pounds is what they owe in debt for a “restructure” they did over a few years, for which does not work at all, and so are now going to restructure AGAIN, but this time, gaining the money by firing half of the teachers, merging modules together, and totally eliminating certain modules all together. We only discovered this half way through our term, when one of our teachers informed us of what was happening.
That is just on the History of Art side.
It is very clear neither side of this degree communicate, as we are thrown readings to do and complete, as well as projects and art show crits which conflict with lecture times.
Every student at this university is given one similar thing to be taught… Communism, and Marxism.
Almost every week, there are protests and marches, often inside the library space itself, or blocking the entrance to the university.
The lectures are nice, but can not give a lecture without sounding like a robot. They present the PowerPoint, and read exactly off of it, in the most painful manner imaginable. If you want to ask a question, it will not be answered, as they will redirect your true question which they know nothing about, to some BS made up answer they think they can pull the wool over your eyes with. There are extra lectures you can attend during the week that are presented by guests… all poorly chosen, and also can not answer a simple question. I’ve asked many a question, not one was every actually answered, and you could see the person looking for a way out of it, to which the head lecturer stepped in and wiped my question away.
Goldsmiths University Accommodation
It’s like a prison, living with the people is like living with rats that steal from your fridge, and do not ever clean the kitchen, the constant smell of marijuana… but the views are nice.
To go to Goldsmiths University, you need to be happy paying an extortionate amount of money, to basically learn nothing, have tutors that hardly speak English, and leave there with a degree that will just about scrap you by in life.
